


302. rebel sound

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [341]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 17:45:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11109657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “Hey,” Sarah says, standing in Alison’s doorway. She looks exhausted, jetlag twined into the lank coils of her hair. “I’m back from Iceland. S has a safe house set up, you wanna come—”“Yes,” Helena says. Of course she says yes.





	302. rebel sound

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: obliquely referenced suicide]

i.

“Hey,” Sarah says, standing in Alison’s doorway. She looks exhausted, jetlag twined into the lank coils of her hair. “I’m back from Iceland. S has a safe house set up, you wanna come—”

“Yes,” Helena says. Of course she says yes.

ii.

Having Helena there isn’t as strange as it should be. She kips out in Kira’s room, the two of them squeezing into Kira’s bed, and after a while Sarah gets used to the bumping sounds of Helena pacing the safe house at night. Helena takes her tea the same way as Sarah – for a while, and then she confesses she likes it with four more sugars, please. It’s – homey, weirdly, the two of them and Siobhan and Kira at the dinner table. It feels like home.

Helena comes with her to meet Dizzy, lurking down the hallway, hilariously pregnant and holding a knife like it’s more natural than the round curve of her belly. Helena breaks into the dental clinic and slits the dental assistant’s throat, and doesn’t even look bothered by it. Helena unfastens the straps.

“It will be fine,” she says, and pats Sarah’s face. Sarah believes her.

iii.

In the middle of the night the two of them lie in Kira’s bed, Sarah petting Kira’s hair and sniffling to keep from crying. There is only one high window above the bed, but it’s enough to light Sarah’s face – the way her eyes shine, wet with tears.

“I thought he was my brother,” she says, twisting her fingers through Kira’s hair and watching the curls fall off her fingerbones again. “I just – I don’t want to lose him.”

“Did he lose you,” Helena says. “When I came. And _sestra_ Cosima, and _sestra_ Alison, and the others. Did he stop being your brother then.”

“No,” Sarah says, “but this is—”

“Just a womb,” Helena says softly, hand curling over her belly. “Do you remember when I thought we were the only ones who were family. Because of our womb.”

Sarah’s eyes go dark and sharp with memory. She doesn’t say anything. Guilt wriggles around in Helena’s belly, careful to avoid waking her babies, and then slithers up her throat. “You told me this was not true,” she says, and spits guilt out. “That he was a brother, which makes him family. Do you still believe this.”

“Yeah,” Sarah says.

“He will believe it too,” Helena says. “He spent his whole life wondering, _sestra_. Let him have this. For a little while.”

Sarah looks at her, and the moonlight lights her all up. In the sleep-soft curves of Helena’s brain she is zip-tied to a pillar, and Sarah is still looking at her like that. Like it will be fine. Like she trusts Helena to help make it fine.

“When’d you get so smart, huh?” Sarah says, the breath of it barely soft enough to ruffle Kira’s hair.

“I was very stupid,” Helena says lightly. “And then somebody came and put sense in me, and said I could join her family if she wanted. And I am grateful for that.”

“Me too,” Sarah says quietly. Kira’s eyelashes flutter as she dreams; the curve of her mouth tilts up a little bit, just almost into a smile.

iv.

The echoes of Cosima’s voice ringing in Sarah’s ears: _Kendall, Kendall she’s dead, they shot her, Sarah, they—_ and Sarah whirls on Helena, like the wrong wounded animal. “Wasn’t that your _job_ ,” she snarls. “Isn’t that why we keep you around? To stop shit like this from happening? Can’t you do _anything_ but eat and fart and take up too much space?”

Helena’s eyes go wide. She takes a step back, like she isn’t a target, like the massive swell of her belly isn’t the biggest and most vulnerable thing. Kendall was a mother too, not that that matters now. Helena didn’t even meet her. Helena doesn’t even know what they lost but Sarah does, because it was her fault.

Kira is in the back room, so Sarah doesn’t go to the back room. She locks herself in the bathroom. She waits for Helena to follow her, but Helena doesn’t follow her at all.

v.

Helena is dragging a car door to the pile of branches and tent-fabric she’s built in the woods when her phone starts ringing. The name on it says SARAH, which means she shouldn’t pick up, but she picks up.

In the background: the sound of trains.

“I’m sorry,” Sarah says, only she’s more yelling it. Her voice blurs around the edges like it’s a book held underwater. “It wasn’t your fault, you shouldn’t have left I should have left, I need to – get out of here—”

“No,” Helena says. “Your family needs you.”

“They’d be better off,” Sarah says. Oh. No. Slurs. “Aren’t you better off now, wherever the _hell_ you are. Everyone’d be. I should just.” She holds the phone away from her mouth and screams, a long loud sound. The train horns echo back at her. Helena echoes back at her: _Sarah, Sarah, Sarah_.

“I should not have left,” Helena says. “Please don’t also leave.”

Sarah laughs. “That wasn’t the kind of leaving I was thinking, was it,” she says. “Can you do me a favor? After I get on a train, can you come home? Keep them safe for me?”

“Sarah,” Helena says.

“Don’t,” Sarah says, “please? I just wanted to say sorry, that’s all.”

“You can be sorry when I come home,” Helena whispers. “I can come home. Sarah?”

“Bye, meathead,” Sarah says, and hangs up.

vi.

Sarah wakes up with a hangover aching at her temples, clanging like – well, not like a train. She rolls over. Helena is standing over the bed, face like a storm. When Sarah blinks at her Helena punches her in the face. It hurts like you would not believe.

Sarah lets out a long loud sound of pain, and then she finds herself pulled to standing and in Helena’s arms. She keeps expecting Helena to smell like shit but she doesn’t; she smells like pine and snow and air. Sarah blinks, tries not to cry into her shoulder.

“Don’t ever,” Helena says, very clearly crying herself. “Don’t ever do this to me ever again, _sestra_ , I will find you and I will kill you myself. Don’t make me worry about you. I thought you had left. I thought you wouldn’t let me say goodbye.” She’s squeezing Sarah so tight that her ribcage feels like her head – which is to say, awful and too-tight and painful beyond belief. She closes her arms around Helena, closes her eyes.

“I was worried first,” she mutters. “You can’t just – piss off like that, meathead.” It’s such a stupid little concern, from the other side of the train station, but she had it and it was hers and it led to her making a phone call, shivering, on the bridge over the train station at night.

“I won’t if you don’t,” Helena says. “We will make promise. No more leaving. Any kind of leaving. No more.”

“Promise,” Sarah says, voice quiet.

“Good,” Helena says, and keeps holding her.

vii.

“I can still go with you, love,” Siobhan says, as Sarah packs her gun to go to the island. Helena stops in the hallway, words shriveling into nothing on her tongue. She was going to say the same thing but it will be less real, now, now that Siobhan has said it first.

“No,” Sarah says. Sarah says _no_. Sarah pushes past Siobhan and sees Helena in the hallway, stops. She pulls Helena to the side. Her hand is warm iron on Helena’s arm.

“You keep them safe for me, okay?” she says, voice low.

“Missus S killed a man with a rifle three days ago,” Helena says. “I do not think she needs my help, _sestra_.”

“Please,” Sarah says.

Helena looks at her. Sarah looks so tired, like she’s just gotten off another plane, like her whole life is planes she is just stepping out of. Helena pities her, the feeling pounding against her throat. Helena loves her. Helena puts her hands on Sarah’s face.

“Come back,” she says. “You promised. No more leaving.”

Sarah swallows and nods. Helena lets her go.

**Author's Note:**

> I had to cut this section, but please know that Helena punches Ferdinand in the face. Just RIGHT in the snoot. I want this knowledge to be yours.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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